Doctors change teenage burn victim’s life with a 3D-printed nose

Doctors have successfully implanted a 3D-printed nose onto a person for the first time in the U.S., according to New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital, which wrote about the surgery on its blog Monday.

Dallan Jennet was just 9 years old, when he fell on a live power line near his home in the Marshall Islands that burned his entire face leaving him with severe facial scarring and a hole for a nose.

This incident resulted him spending the next five years in self-imposed isolation. He even quit school because he didn’t want anyone to stare at his face.

Earlier in 2015 he flew to New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, in New York City, to undergo multiple surgeries that would restore his sense of smell and taste.

Jennet’s first procedure, in early 2015, took place in the Marshall Islands, where doctors input expanders under the remaining skin of his nose to make room for the reconstructed body part.

Benicia, California-based nonprofit Canvasback Missions Inc, an organisation that provides health care and health education to the Pacific Islands, funded Jennet and his mother’s travel and medical expenses to New York.